O.K., Leftwing Jews Have a Movement. What Does It Stand For?

A reporter called me yesterday and said I was wrong in declaring there’s a movement of progressive Jews who are criticizing Zionism. He asked for my evidence. I started with Jewish Voice for Peace, which runs muzzlewatch and rallied in the cold to support Jimmy Carter at Brandeis. He said, “But they’re kind of a fringe organization.”

Well, gee. That’s actually what movement means, a rearrangement of the political hierarchy (of which that reporter is a part) to include a formerly marginalized group. The women’s movement. The settlers’ movement. The evangelical movement.

Now here are a few more straws in the wind, demonstrating that the formerly-marginalized progressives are movin’ in.

—In Australia, the Age today does a piece on perestroika in the Jewish community (saying that author Antony Loewenstein is leading a breakaway to challenge the Israel lobby), and The Age’s sidebar exposes as objectionable a regular practice in the Jewish community: Zionists use the word “self-hating” to describe Jews who dissent from the program;

—The Times piece on the American Jewish Committee‘s report on these matters of 1/31 devotes real space to a book that nettled the AJC: Wrestling With Zion, edited by Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon. This wonderful book, which includes a great number of Jewish writers who are uncomfortable with Zionist ideology (and some who aren’t so uncomfortable with it), came out nearly 4 years ago. It was never reviewed by the Times, mentioned only once in passing. Now it is mentioned prominently in the Times, and in a positive light. Change.

—In Washington last week, Theater J held a reading of the heterodox historical play I saw performed in N.Y. last spring, David Zellnik’s amazing “Ariel Sharon Stands on the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodor Herzl”. The reading went well, before a good-sized crowd in the Jewish Community Center in Northwest D.C. No one jumped up and screamed antisemitism, they wanted to talk about Zionism.

—In yesterday’s Washington Post, an aggrieved victim of the AJC (as opposed to one of the victims who’s reveling in it), Richard Cohen, says “Shame” on the AJC for “promiscuously” throwing around the word anti-Semite.

—Australia again. Today’s Australian features a sharp opinion piece by TAMU’s Michael Desch, a Holocaust scholar, who hops on the self-hating thing again. Dismissing “Jews who deviate from the pro-Israel line” as “self-hating” is the kind of “dirty pool” regularly practiced by the lobby.

O.K. So it’s a movement. We’re gaining traction. What do we stand for?

I’m not a political organizer, but I feel that if a conference were held tomorrow, the issues on which these people agree would be: Israel’s occupation is wrong and fueled by parochial and often-racist religious ideology, efforts to suppress that view in the U.S. (the lobby) is not healthy for the U.S., Israel, and children and other living things.

The issues on which we wouldn’t agree are: Is Zionism discredited? Is it still possible, or desirable, to have a 2-state solution?

The fascinating thing about this is that it essentially revives a battle over Zionist aims that took place 60 and 70 years ago within the Jewish community but that was eventually suppressed after the Holocaust. Through the 20s, 30s, and 40s, Zionists tried and ultimately succeeded in organizing American Jewry along defiant principles: they belonged to a “people” whose peoplehood transcended the nations they were in, they were homeless, liberal emancipation in the west was a failed hope, they had to support a nation in Palestine. Most Jews were against these ideas, or indifferent. The American Jewish Committee, at that time dominated by German Jews who were, like myself, integrationists, or assimilationists—i.e., they wanted to be like other citizens of the nations they were living in—tried at times to distance itself from Zionism. No more.

The conversation is being revived because the underlying issues were not resolved; and everything that anti-Zionists said would happen did happen: endless violence in the Middle East, and incredible and unfair pressure on Jews in other countries to support Israel and fund Zionism. The progs have had enough.

Again, I’d emphasize that a number of events outside the Jewish community, many of them embarrassments, led to this wave: the Rachel Corrie censorship of last February at the New York Theatre Workshop, a censorship no one would stand up for once it was exposed, but that no one at NYTW would rectify either; the Walt-Mearsheimer paper a month later, published in a foreign land, not here (and followed by the Tony Judt piece in the Times in April supporting W&M when leftwing Jews were afraid of W&M, thereby giving the paper (warning, here comes Yiddish) hecksher, Kosher certification); the Lebanon war, followed by many international human rights reports critical of Israeli tactics; Jimmy Carter’s frankly pro-Arab book, featuring that glory of Jewish civilization on the cover, the apartheid wall; the Iraq Study Group calling on a revival of the peace process in a crucial arena of the Middle East… I’ll shut up now, I’m even boring myself.

41 Responses

Adam

February 7, 2007, 3:51 pm

This is really heartening.

I tend to have the feeling that this is much more than a fad. This will not die away in a few months.

I think the support for Israel among the diaspora has been seriously dented for the future. The growing generations of Jews will have to contend with what Lerner, Judt and others are saying, and will find it harder and harder to support Israel's crimes.

That of course, is a very good thing. No longer will Israel be able to carry out crimes unaccountably, knowing that whatever it does, it has a strong army of backers who will whitewash her in the media here and make sure politicians never stray.

Ben

February 7, 2007, 4:50 pm

Because I'm not Jewish but I want to successfully be involved in debates on these issues, I have learned over the last 7 years to parse every word I say from the perspective of a hard ring-wing Zionist looking to find something to attack me with. If I ever said anything even mildly objectionable, even if it was via a completely unintended allusion, I would lose all traction in any debate.

From my handicapped position, I've learned never to criticize Zionism. Thus I could never have been able to write "Is Zionism discredited?" To argue that point would cause such a backlash that I might as well just pack up and go home after saying it. I guess for Philip, with the background he has, it is different.

Anyhow, I think it is possible and desirable to advocate for a binational solution from a Post-Zionist stance. One might as well declare that Zionism has been successful in creating a homeland for the Jews — such a goal has been achieved. It's just not a finished process. There are the unfinished matter of the Palestinians. Thus we need to move to a Post-Zionist stage were we adjust our understandings around to pragmatically accommodate the facts on the ground in a such a way that the end result is compatible with universally accepted principles of human rights and can lead to long-term stability and safety for those in the region.

I notice that there is opposition even on the hard-right to a two-state solution: A Palestinian State is Not the Answer, Arlene Kushner. The right knows that it isn't workable, they can't admit the real reasons for it not working, but all the same, they know that a two-state solution is no longer workable.

brenda

Y-a-a-a-a-a-a-y, Phil! And y-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y to all you other liberated Jews!!!!

It's a movement all right. You're like yeast raising a heavy dough. At the end there'll be something edible.

"What do we stand for?", you ask. The righteous ideals of true Judaism, Dude. Same as you always did. What got distorted and co-opted by a bunch of crazed nationalists for awhile, but what has been there all along. The fight is just beginning. Let's not hope it's too late.

David Z

February 7, 2007, 5:47 pm

Dude — you rightly point out that the worldwide Jewish community was split over Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s (I believe Zionists were a distinct minority at that time), and that anti-Zionism has since been pushed right out of approved Jewish thinking. Only thing is, you left out the main reason that happened. Starting in about 1938, the 150-year experiment of European Jews seeking to, as you put it, become "like other citizens of the nations they were living in" ended in mass murder — perpetrated by the very nation in which they had risen to greatest prominence and in which they felt most protected and "integrated". Other great exemplars of enlightenment, such as the French establishment, assisted in the slaughter. The lesson most Jews drew from this was that the Western liberal tradition, wonderful as it is in so many ways, could not be counted on to stand between the Jews and their would-be murderers–not in the 20th century, and thus, not ever. Recent trends in Europe confirm this lesson, as Europeans' commitment to the concept of "Never again" erodes by the day. So please don't pretend that the ONLY thing that has changed in Jewish life in the past 60 years is the founding and travails of the state of Israel. That little thing called the Holocaust continues to reverberate– at least for Jews, if for no one else….and that is why your struggle to rehabilitate anti-Zionism– in effect, a comforting and naive belief that Jews can always count on the non-Jewish world for their safety–is a difficult one. Alas, it is not an impossible quest. Many non-Jews have already been converted to the anti-Zionist creed, and plenty of US Jews are attracted to it. In a country profoundly ignorant of history, it's real simple to sell such beliefs. Just look at the 911 Conspiracy "movement" !

lester

February 7, 2007, 6:06 pm

the "hard line" zionists victories are only in the narrow short term. there is a wave of straight up anti -israel feeling out there, fueled largely on the suspicion that there is something they are not telling us.

and it doesn't help that people have to go to sites like stormfront to read anything critical about israel.

once the "save darfur" crowd gets ahold of the whole israel lobby issue and sees AIPAC and whatnot for what they are it's bye bye israel.

really, the leftists may be the ones who save israel. both bush and olmert are trying to win pissing contests with muslims and it won't work. they don't care. they'll happily send their children and uncles and mothers to blow themselves up if you are on their soil. forever.

read colonial history

Ben

lester wrote: "once the 'save darfur' crowd gets ahold of the whole israel lobby issue and sees AIPAC and whatnot for what they are it's bye bye israel."

then lester wrote: "really, the leftists may be the ones who save israel."

What are you talking about? Your logically inconsistent even within the span of a single post. Advocating for the end of Israel with glee shows that you are coming at this from a bitter vengeful emotionally-rooted perspective that is no better than the virulent anti-Arab perspectives that some non-thinking right-wing Zionists have. Attitudes like the one you are displaying contribute to the problem, not the solution.

David

February 7, 2007, 6:33 pm

Phil is making a mistake thinking of this as a "progressive" movement. Aligning with the universal rather than the particular is neither progressive nor conservative. (In fact, conservative thinkers — not to be confused with neocons — have actually been in the lead opposing Zionist hypocrisy up till now.)

There will come a point down the road when there will be arguments over practical steps to take to implement a just solution, but the commitment to justice is a shared commitment of both camps.

lester

ben- I didn't "advocate for the end of israel with glee". I am for the end of israel but i wasn't advocating for it, much less with glee.

not every one is a zionist, believe it or not. it's a political opinion that has nothing to do with deep rooted anything.

anyway, my point was time is running out on AIPACS tactic of smearing and silencing criticism of israel in the US, and it's leading to a ossible trend of sorts that could leave the tiny jewish state up a big creek.

David

February 7, 2007, 6:50 pm

This is really more of a psychological movement than a political one. Fundamentally it's about re-examining concepts of Jewish identity — the tribe, the goyim, choseness and all that stuff. (Not necessarily throwing them out, but definitely recalibrating them.) Call it "Jews for Mental Sanity". Plenty of room for both progressives and conservatives, secular and religious.

Ben

lester also wrote: "and it doesn't help that people have to go to sites like stormfront to read anything critical about israel."

You are reading Stormfront and feel that it is the only source for criticism of Israel's policies? What planet are you living on?

I read plenty that is critical of Israel's policies in places like the New York Review of Books, The Nation, the American Prospect and so forth. But that criticism is balanced and thoughtful because the authors are not making it as part of a larger racist agenda.

Stormfront, on the other hand, advocates for white/aryan nationalism and is anti-Jew, not just anti-Zionist. Stormfront is the definition of an co-opting opportunistic xenophobic group, they see legitimate criticism of a group they dislike and they latch on to it in order to further their boarder agenda. The UK-based BNP, which advocates against all British minority groups including Jews, does the same thing although in the other direction: they have recently embraced select radical right-wing Jews (such as Bat Ye'or) who advocate hate against Arabs.

lester

February 7, 2007, 7:35 pm

ben- those magazines you listed are lame and their criticisms are mild and boring. that's why no one is trying to censor them. I used stormfront as an example because they freely acknowledge they are anti semetic. if the AJC and others start calling everyone and everything anti semites, eventually people will simply embrace the label as the various skinheads and assorted weirdos over at that site do.

I don't think now is really the time for jews to be getting super sensitive and politically correct. in fact, i'd say it's the exact wrong time.

Ben

February 7, 2007, 7:44 pm

lester, I find you to be much too radical for my tastes. You most likely haven't read much in the New York Review of Books or if you have, it scares me that you think the criticisms are mild and boring. I guess you and I disagree on things and while I could go one, life is short and let's leave it at that.

bill Pearlman

lester

February 7, 2007, 8:15 pm

ben- i'm just trying to give you the facts of life here. there is a storm brewing over this stuff .

Look at mel gibson, most people didn't care about the hateful crazy things he said about jews. that same nonchalance is coming to the forefront and we may well get a good look at americas anti semite side. stranger things have happened.

So i'd say don't fly to high to the sun like that greek guy or your wings will melt or whatever.

bill Pearlman

bill Pearlman

February 7, 2007, 8:48 pm

Whats the movement, It's not about anything than the destruction of Israel. Its not about building anything and most of you guys don't really give two shits about the Palestinians, and don't think they don;t know it.. Its all about the Jews and Israel. The saving grace here is that none of the people that Phil mentioned in his column have Jewish kids or spouses. So, when they die the pseudo-Jewish part of their family dies with them. And the world will be better for it

Ben

February 7, 2007, 11:20 pm

Bill wrote: "The saving grace here is that none of the people that Phil mentioned in his column have Jewish kids or spouses."

It is true that non-religious people tend to reproduce less than religious people. The same general thing is happening in the United States were evangelical Christians who tend conservative are out reproducing the traditional Democratic base or something to that extent. I personally think that atheists should put more pressure on their atheist peers to reproduce, a replacement for the pressure that traditionally was exerted via religious teachings and practices — but that is another movement for another time.

Anonymous

I read plenty that is critical of Israel's policies in places like the New York Review of Books, The Nation, the American Prospect and so forth.

Yes, Ben, you read it with a delay of ten years, perhaps? You don't search for truth, you search for accepted discourse.

…and we may well get a good look at americas anti semite side.

No, Lester, the first thing this supposed movement of "enlightened jews" will do is to demand an end to all things they consider antisemitic. Remember, this is not about Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and justice.

This is really more of a psychological movement than a political one.

Yes, David, but it's aim is to change our psychology, not theirs.

A final point for people like Norton the Naive: european ethnic nationalists not only tend to support Israel's right to exist, but also tend to regard it as a sort of race segregation model.

Rowan Berkeley

european ethnic nationalists not only tend to support Israel's right to exist, but also tend to regard it as a sort of race segregation model.

well, if you take the French Nouvelle Droit, you will find it has split into two wings, one controlled under the table by French zionist Jews (see Guillaume Faye)and the other not (see Alain Benoist).

From the point of view of serious geopolitics, the idea that 'Israel' might be 'a sort of race segregation model' is unknown to me : afaik, the zionist-subordinated wing simply recycles neocon anti-Muslim rhetoric.

If you really want to delve into these issues, I suggest you read Prof. Kevin MacDonald, who uses an 'evolutionary psychology' model to explain all these phenomena, which is not a model I believe is 'true' but it does provide a framework on which to hang the facts. Look at some of his work on here:link to theoccidentalquarterly.com

Anonymous

February 8, 2007, 11:16 am

Good morning, Rowan. The emphasys should be on "right to exist" and not on the word "model", which you may have taken in a too strict sense. My "model" is assertion of racial supremacy amidst great walls under the dome of dogma… or something like that which is able to fester between an upper bound of superstition and a lower bound of hate, but now I digress and that is unfair with so polite an interlocutor always able to supply a great amount of mouth watering links to hurried people like me (I write this looking at my watch and sweating), but all I can say now is thanks :)

Kevin MacDonald?

February 8, 2007, 12:59 pm

Isn't Kevin the fellow who argued for a "white ethnostate" with high birthrates? Hardly a progressive idea.

Unless whites manage another genocide, the world is steadily moving towards integration, intermarriage, inter-everything. Like Brazil. Israel will follow this trend in time, as will every other country.

And if the whites do try another genocide, they should remember they're no longer the only race with nukes.

lester

Alice

February 8, 2007, 8:38 pm

I grew up in NYC with many Jewish friends, none of whom gave a fig about the state of Israel. They were not Zionists. What disturbs me is that so many people conflate being a Jew and being a Zionist. And as a professor who gets skewered when I speak out in favor of the rights of Palestinians, I can attest to the fact that wild and inaccurate accusations of anti-Semitism are rampant, usually invalid, and breed a group of people who go silent with their thoughts.

lester

bill Pearlman

Gee guys, I must have missed the news about the Arab markets. I guess when people are making real decisions and commiting real money they've decided that Israel isn't crumbling

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange returned

to its record-breaking ways yesterday, as the TA-25 rose 0.6 percent to mark an all-time high of 973.8 points and the broader TA-100 index gained 0.7 percent to reach a new high of 982.8 points. The Tel-Tech 15 climbed 0.7 percent to 389.1 points. Turnover was lively at NIS 1.7 billion.

Since the start of 2007, the stock market has climbed over 5 percent. The drive to the psychological 1,000-point barrier has been fueled by the same stars of 2006: insurance and real estate stocks, up 9 percent so far this year, as well as shares in the Yeter-30 index, which has jumped 11 percent since January 1.

The announcement of the deal to sell the Arena mall in Herzliya to Financial Levers (TASE:LVR) sent the stock skyrocketing 20.8 percent yesterday. Shares in Elbit Medical Imaging (TASE:EMIT), which sold the mall for NIS 546 million, leapt 3.2 percent.

Israel Chemicals (TASE:CHIM), which had tanked 4.7 percent Tuesday, recovered 0.9 percent on turnover of NIS 116 million, the third highest of the day. The company took a hit after it reportedly signed deals with Russian and Chinese potash producers at prices $5 per ton above 2006 rates, below market expectations of a rise of $10-$20 per ton.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TASE:TEVA) lost 1.3 percent in heavy trading, as investors took profits on its 15 percent gain since the beginning of the year. Citigroup announced yesterday it believes the stock will gain 30 percent in 2007.

Dual-traded companies this week were affected by the financial reporting season on Wall Street. Tower Semiconductors (NASD, TASE:TSEM) reported a 78 percent jump in sales but remained in the red; the news sent its shares down 5 percent. Wireless broadband networks provider Alvarion (NASD, TASE:ALVR) sank 3.8 percent after reporting its Q4 losses in 2006 widened, though a positive Q1 guidance for 2007 sent its Wall Street shares up 12.5 percent in afternoon trading.

Rowan Berkeley

Bill Pearlman

February 9, 2007, 3:07 pm

Kameraden Rowan, just making the point that when I guy like Warren Buffet decides to invest in Israel its a major vote of confidence. But, when you take some time off from saluting your portrait of Hitler it really doesn't make a difference. By the way how does the Horst Wessel song go again

lester

Derick Schilling

February 18, 2007, 12:11 am

To add to David Z's perceptive comments: it's also worth remembering the murderous anti-Semitism of postwar Stalinism, as demonstrated by the Doctors' Plot and trial of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR and the Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia. While the murderousness abated after Stalin's death, anti-Semiticism continued to be a factor in Soviet politics until the mid-1980s under the guise of (surprise, surprise) anti-Zionism. This helped lessen the appeal of Communism as an ideological alternative to Zionism.

As for what the "progressive" Jewish anti-Zionist movement stands for, I suppose I should hesitate to offer an opinion, what being a goy and all, but in the spirit of transcending so-called tribalism, how about:

Moral smugness; endless self-righteousness; and the utter indifference to reality necessary to give credence to Tony Judt's fantasy about a bi-national post-Israeli state living happily ever after in EU wonderland.

In case anyone is wondering, yes, I am a secular Zionist, and regarding contemporary Jewish public figures, I'll take Moshe Ya'alon over Noam Almighty Chomsky six days a week and twice on the Sabbath.

Derick Schilling

February 18, 2007, 12:12 am

To add to David Z's perceptive comments: it's also worth remembering the murderous anti-Semitism of postwar Stalinism, as demonstrated by the Doctors' Plot and trial of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR and the Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia. While the murderousness abated after Stalin's death, anti-Semiticism continued to be a factor in Soviet politics until the mid-1980s under the guise of (surprise, surprise) anti-Zionism. This helped lessen the appeal of Communism as an ideological alternative to Zionism.

As for what the "progressive" Jewish anti-Zionist stands for, I suppose I should hesitate to offer an opinion, what being a goy and all, but in the spirit of transcending so-called tribalism, how about:

Moral smugness; endless self-righteousness; and the utter indifference to reality necessary to give credence to Tony Judt's fantasy about a bi-national post-Israeli state living happily ever after in EU wonderland.

And yes, in case any one is wondering, I am a secular Zionist, and regarding contemporary Jewish figures I admire, I'll take Moshe Ya'alon over Noam Chomsky six days a week and twice on the Sabbath.

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